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Don R. Day, Learning by Wrote

Doug Morrison, Mardi: Making a Real Difference Internationally

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Agenda• Background of the problem• A proposed architecture• Implementation considerations• Scenario: Information flows in a disaster response• Summary

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The Knowledge Paradox:• The greater the potential benefit of a particular piece of

knowledge, the less available it becomes.

• Reasons:• Visibility value to the owner• Anxiety (anticipating negative feedback, for example)• Responsibility (the need to answer questions)• Unaware of the value or need for this nugget• Busy, distracted, unwilling• “It’s too hard to comply with the content strategy.” (notes end up

in hard to access formats)

• Which leads to…3

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Content Obduracy (vs agility): When the quality or rate of information can’t keep up with the need

• Dynamic situations such as emergency management in which timely, experiential information from the field can help improve response recommendations.

• Time-constrained situations such as disease control where updated procedures must be quickly distributed to the public.

• An effective, agile content strategy based on standards allows experts on both sides to quickly create and update information for urgent application in the field.

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A “Rapid Response” Content Architecture• Standards-based: enable interoperability with other content

creators and other tools• Open Source: where possible, leverage crowd-sourced

knowledge for systems maintenance and features• Agile content: making use of structure, metadata, and

semantics• Web-based: for wide availability, redundancy• Collaboration strategy: for open contribution• Topic oriented: for ease of:• Consistent authoring• Discovery• Reuse• Reassembly for publishing.

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Collaboration architecture

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The contributor/end user loop• “Editing in Browser” enables any reader to also be a

contributor or reviewer.• Normally, the logistics center (or research center or command

center) is where the subject matter expert assimilates incoming information to form new practices or policies. Yet,…

• An end user IS a subject matter expert if they are able to report on information that is needed back at the center. (to wit: Zombie Survival Guide meme)

• Collaborative systems enable this interaction and bring the content consumer into the contributor role.

• As with Wikipedia, ‘user-generated content’ and ‘wisdom of the crowd’ are key to this architecture. 7

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Opposing content paradigmsAuthority-oriented Systems Effectivity-oriented

SystemsGoals of systems Write, review, produce assigned

content (vetted truth)Aggregate, curate, redistribute acquired content (crowd truth)

Roles of contributors

Writer contributors are reviewed by editors, peers and SMEs

SME contributors are reviewed by other contributors, content is periodically gleaned

Writing tools Unsuited for SMEs as writers (confusing toolbars, tag-rich, attribute-rich, intimidating messages, etc.)

Inadequate for writers’ full roles (content analysis, reviews, approvals, full CMS and production features)

Publishing method

Usually available only to entitled subscribers (ie, SaaS)

Usually posted freely and widely

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• Authority-oriented: managed by business rules and quality checkpoints.• Effectivity-oriented: driven by requests for news or information

(Wikipedia is often cited; Twitter usage in the “Arab Spring” is a more recent and dramatic example of enabling change through information.)

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Proposed refinement• Intercept as many content streams as possible in DITA format• Content is directly useable in DITA-aware processing.• Content can be enhanced (made "intelligent") by adding:

• Linking relationships• Metadata• Semantic markup (coaching, review/edit, etc.)

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Why DITA for agile content?• Ann Rockley defines Intelligent Content (same idea) as:

“content which is structurally rich and semantically aware, therefore automatically discoverable, reusable, reconfigurable, and adaptable.”

• XML technologies help that goal by:• Enabling content interchange with organizations across the

company• Enabling content interchange with partners, contractors, OEMs• Enabling dialog between companies and customers• Facilitating process definition and execution within the company

• DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) is an XML application designed to provide many of these benefits.

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Useful DITA Features• Reuse-oriented:• Reuse of Content (topic or element)• Reuse of Design (specialization)• Reuse of Processing (class-based processing)

• Clean separation of competing concerns:• Content separated from Context• Content separated from Presentation

• Rich provisions for Metadata• Conditional processing

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The SME as a trusted author• Effective software for SMEs should be ubiquitous and

accessible:• If they are used to using a word processor, enable those tools to

produce DITA.• If they use wikis, give them a simple experience (Drupal and

expeDITA).• If they are smartphone or tablet users, give them a tool that

works well with soft keyboards or voice input.• And if they tweet, capture that!

• Other collaborative interfaces for direct DITA :• Wikis & blogs• Forums• SMS text messages• Forms!

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A simple, HTML form-based “task” editor might have the following required and optional fields, many of which correspond to the generated labels:

Task title: [input] * Short description: [textarea] Before you begin: [textarea] About this task: [textarea] Procedure: [textarea] * More + Results: [textarea] Example: [textarea] What to do next: [textarea]

SUBMIT *=required field

e.g., DITA from HTML forms

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Getting content into DITA• Integrate DITA conversion to and from those native formats• Convert seamlessly from traditional sources:• "Data mining" for content in files, call center logs, chat logs, etc..• Use familiar desktop tools that are DITA-aware (Quark Xpress

Author, Author-It, FrameMaker)• “What isn’t DITA” series explores “use what’s at hand”

authoring: http://learningbywrote.com/blog/?p=341 (and following)

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Fostering contribution• Empower and encourage atmosphere of sharing• Reward/acknowledge mastery of markup goals• Provide wizards and other assistance for inserting metadata and

markup• Devise "shell" templates to guide general flow of well-structured

topics• Look to ease policies that impede spontaneous participation• Create and support communities around knowledge domains• Internal workgroups or meetups• Local DITA user groups• Worldwide DITA resources and forums• Training and reading resources

• Make it easier to reuse knowledge (dita maps and conrefs)15

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Scenarios for disaster response• Discussion by Doug Morrison,

Mardi: Making A Real Difference Internationally

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Resources• About DITA, the standard:

• OASIS DITA Focus Area, http://dita.xml.org/book/dita-wiki-knowledgebase

• OASIS DITA Technical Committee, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita

• DITA forum, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users/

• DITA Open Toolkit, http://sourceforge.net/projects/dita-ot/

• Bob Doyle’s chronology of minimalism and topic oriented writing:http://dita.xml.org/book/history-of-dita

• About collaboration:

• The Evolution of Web-Based Collaboration at NASA & The Wiki-way Forward, http://pmchallenge.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/2009/presentations/Newman.Steve.pdf

• DITA for Drupal: http://pronovix.com/category/all/dita

• expeDITA Content Collaboration project, http://expedita-cct.com/17

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Presenters:• Don Day (donday@learningbywrote.com)• Doug Morrison (doug@mardinet.org)

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Questions?

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Backup slides

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Rethink playbook for nuclear accidents, IAEA chief urgesBy the CNN Wire StaffMarch 21, 2011 3:03 p.m. EDT March 21, 2011 3:03 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- International regulators need to rethink their procedures for handling nuclear accidents in the wake of the crisis in Japan, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency said Monday. The current framework for responding to emergencies dates back to the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident in 1986 and "reflects the realities of the 1980s, not of the 21st century," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano said. "The speed at which information now travels and the huge volume of information in public circulation are among the most significant changes since then," Amano said. … "The responsibility of the IAEA is to provide authoritative and validated information as quickly as possible, but doing this under the current arrangements inevitably takes time and has limitations."

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Managing content in a collaboration space• What is a typical content lifecycle?• Preparation (analysis and design)• Initial document creation• Feedback and modification (test)• Readability testing and translation• Approval (publication/build implementation)• Subsequent updates and modification (support, enhancements)

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Managing content, cont.• Options for turning original/curated content into reusable

resources:• Rule-driven, heuristic tools (for example, using LegalZoom to

create online wills, other DIY advice)• Specialist-vetted FAQs and How-To topics• Content migration services for legacy data

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